Posing for our 8th picture after a talk Abby gave in Fargo, ND in June. The first seven were hideous.


I stole the quotation you are about to read from Abby Johnson’s latest blog, which you can find here.
If you don’t know who Abby is, do yourself a favor and pick up her book, UnPlanned. Abby is a brave lady who is willing to throw herself out under the bus of public opinion just to hopefully save women from hurt and pain. She’s worth listening to. Anyway, now onto the quote:
“The pro-life movement needs to be about collaboration; working together, finding out who does what best…we can’t all be the best at everything.”
Sounds pretty simple and straightforward, yes? Hardly.
Since the initial vision for creating Guiding Star Centers came in the fall of 2006, I have been given a crash course in Pro-Life: 101.  I have observed a few overarching themes in trying to work with pro-life groups, and the fact that I am about to state them here, is not going to win me any popularity contests. But with hope and belief that we all share the same end goal (an end to a culture that despises humanity), I step out with courage to say what I think is holding back the pro-life movement.
1) As Mrs. Johnson so rightly stated above, “we can’t all be the best at everything”.  Currently some groups attempt to provide a quantity of services instead of a quality. I think we better serve those seeking our assistance when we provide fewer, higher quality services and rely on others who specialize in the other areas to fill in the gaps. We communicate to clients that they are worth our best. They have dignity.
2) Referrals are lacking. In order to fill in those gaps for clients needing services, our referral networks must be much stronger. We have to actually know the other agencies in our region and create relationships with people in many different service areas so that we can confidently refer onward to best serve the client. Giving names and actually connecting the client to the next provider gives them a sense of only being given the best. That  you would only refer them on to a friend, because they are worth that.
3) Fighting for funding. Yes, we all know that times are tough. But do we think that they are tough enough to jealously guard our donors so that they will not give “our” money to other agencies? I have seen this, and it is so disheartening. Instead of trying to call “dibs” on donors, why don’t we try to find a model that allows these donors the ability to give generously to several causes at once? Do we operate out of an abundance ideology, or out a poverty mindset? Is it possible that we can share some of our expenses so that our donor’s money could go much further? Could we ever consider working together in one space to eliminate duplicate spending on things like rent rates, utilities, phone/internet, copy machines, office supplies, staff lounges? Which lead us directly to #4….
4) Rampant Individualism. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad thing to have a seperate identity and purpose. That is how we develope specialists in every field (see #1). But when it comes the point of seeing our own cause or approach as superior to the contributions of other causes, that is not helpful. It’s like the analogy of the body. You know it; many parts, all one body. When the hand perceives the foot to be of less value and convinces the other parts that they should no longer nourish it or hack it off, no one benefits and everyone else must now try to limp along without it, literally. In our movement there are many parts. We need them all to get us to a true Culture of Life. Everyone is important; from the crisis pregnancy centers, to the adoption lawyers, to the volunteers running the drop-off daycare. We all need to work together.
I do not say these things to create further division or ill-will within our movement, but because I think we ARE capable of overcoming these difficulties. Sometimes you just need to say it like it is in order to make changes that will positively affect your cause. We cannot be afraid of criticism, especially when it is given with love and a promise to stand together through the trials that will come with change.
I am hopeful that over time many people will come to see the wisdom of working together and that through greater collaboration all our pro-life groups will be strengthened.  If we ever want to present an approach that can stand up to the groups that are currently touting themselves as “women’s centers”, we need to be able to create centers that provide the same number of services, in a professional specialized manner.  The only difference will be that our providers actually DO provide solutions to the problems we as a society are facing.